Starvation: Sectors should starve before Core systems

[tangled axile]

Wiz touched on the new 'galactic' food system a bit in the feb 9 stream, and mentioned that running a food deficit with no stockpile would mean, for simplicity, the whole empire was starving.

I'd like to propose a small change to that: under the new 'galactic' food system, if there's still enough food to feed the Core systems but not the entire empire, only the sectors should get the effects of 'starvation.' (Alternatively, substitute 'the capitol planet' for 'the core worlds')

I feel this would adequately address the problem of 'one food under equilibrium, and the whole empire is starving' without adding back more micromanagement.

It's also much more realistic, particularly for evil empires - historically speaking, when there are local famines within large empires, only specific regions actually suffer. Eg, during Ireland's Great Famine, there sure as hell wasn't mass starvation in England. Ideally, starvation would start one sector at a time, but that might be more intensive in terms of coding or micromanagement. I think my suggestion is a good compromise.

It could also be implemented more simply - say, if you're providing over 95% of the needed total food (and you actually have sectors), the core worlds aren't starving; if over 90% (and you actually have multiple planets), the capitol isn't starving. (with further exceptions for blockaded worlds ofc)

For more or less beneficent empires (based on living standards / the authoritarian-egalitarian spectrum?), it could be a different cutoff. Or maybe it's reserved only for Authoritarians / autocratic governments, and everyone else keeps the system as it currently works. There are lots of possible implementations.

 

[terrycloth]

I'd prefer it if it was 'any planet that can feed itself isn't starving'.

 

[General Retreat]

Chuck in random crop failure planetary events (-50% upwards food reduction) and I'd love this. Just imagining a potato blight knocking out a breadbasket world, which starves a key economic world, which initiates a galactic cascade failure, which kills the First League.

 

[Kedryn]

Damn... if it's like that then any planet that produces enough food to feed itself but is starving because of this should get triple unhappiness or just declare independence. Starving while living next to farms that ship their food to elsewhere is a great cause of resentment.

Hell, I'm resentful over the price of pecans since other countries decided they liked them.

 

[Sopbucket]

There's already a limited citizenship status, as well as a policy to keep limited citizens off of core worlds. All that's missing is an "inequitable rations" policy that prioritizes full citizens over limited citizens when there isn't enough food to go around. I'd support that, and I think it would work just fine with the system as is. The only hiccup is if Living Standards gets changed to determine a population's food intake as well, it's not really clear how these systems would work together in that case.

This is how I imagine it would work - food is distributed equitably as normal until there isn't enough to feed the entire population. Once this happens, full citizens will be apportioned enough food to keep them from starving, and limited citizens will have to make due with what is left. This continues until the limited citizens have nothing and the full citizens start to starve as well - and at some point the displacement purge mechanics will kick in for the limited citizens as they try to find a better life somewhere else. I think this would have fairly distinct reprecussions, without being overly complicated.

 

[ringhloth]

I'd prefer it if it was 'any planet that can feed itself isn't starving'.

To me, it makes sense to have a large amount of people subsist on just enough food to survive, than to have ample food for 80%, while the other 20% dies.

Do we even know the penalties for having not enough food, or how it scales?

 

[Ixal]

And that will only mean that people will ignore food as for them sectors are not important.

So no.

 

[The Founder]

I'd like to propose a small change to that: under the new 'galactic' food system, if there's still enough food to feed the Core systems but not the entire empire, only the sectors should get the effects of 'starvation.' (Alternatively, substitute 'the capitol planet' for 'the core worlds')

The problem with that would be: Guess where the food producing planets are located? Why, in Sectors of course! In fact you propably make a food sector, with an agrarian species.

I feel this would adequately address the problem of 'one food under equilibrium, and the whole empire is starving' without adding back more micromanagement.

There already is a whole system of storage to prevent that. If you are one under produciton, you have 200 months (or over 16 YEARS) to fix it with the minimum storage amount shown in the lifestream!
And then you are still stuck in the "it will be a fixed penalty like -5% per missing food" mindset. One of the advantages of making this stuff Empirewide is that you can actually figure total percentages. If you need 100, but only produce 99 AND are out of Storage: I guess that is at tops a -1% penalty on every planet. Might even round down to -0%.

If you actually manage to run out of storage, you have to realise: You fucked up big time.
The new Food System is like energy, you want to have overflowing. If you manage to screw that Food Maintenance up, you just fucked up.

 

[faljen_isus]

i would also love planet resource stores, so you literally have to starve a planet and it takes a bit of time

and to mention that it would be good if famine actually eradicated pops

imagine, extermination by starvation

 

[corny.1234]

i would also love planet resource stores, so you literally have to starve a planet and it takes a bit of time

and to mention that it would be good if famine actually eradicated pops

imagine, extermination by starvation

Nice idea with the food storage!

Regarding the death through starvation, isn't it already implemented?

 

[Xoatl]

Yes, makes no sense for a planet to starve itself if it produces more than enough to feed all its own POPs. Never thought it was too hard to fixthough. But I don't know much about programming.

 

[faljen_isus]

Nice idea with the food storage!

Regarding the death through starvation, isn't it already implemented?

thanks, and no, they just get quite grumpy due to happiness malus and, logically, stop pop growth in the process

but with the new unrest system they might actually rebel if they get grumpy enough

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

There's already a limited citizenship status, as well as a policy to keep limited citizens off of core worlds. All that's missing is an "inequitable rations" policy that prioritizes full citizens over limited citizens when there isn't enough food to go around. I'd support that, and I think it would work just fine with the system as is. The only hiccup is if Living Standards gets changed to determine a population's food intake as well, it's not really clear how these systems would work together in that case.

This is how I imagine it would work - food is distributed equitably as normal until there isn't enough to feed the entire population. Once this happens, full citizens will be apportioned enough food to keep them from starving, and limited citizens will have to make due with what is left. This continues until the limited citizens have nothing and the full citizens start to starve as well - and at some point the displacement purge mechanics will kick in for the limited citizens as they try to find a better life somewhere else. I think this would have fairly distinct reprecussions, without being overly complicated.

This would be good.

To me, it makes sense to have a large amount of people subsist on just enough food to survive, than to have ample food for 80%, while the other 20% dies.

Do we even know the penalties for having not enough food, or how it scales?

&

Yes, makes no sense for a planet to starve itself if it produces more than enough to feed all its own POPs. Never thought it was too hard to fixthough. But I don't know much about programming.

I'll refer you back to OP's point

when there are local famines within large empires, only specific regions actually suffer. Eg, during Ireland's Great Famine, there sure as hell wasn't mass starvation in England

There wasn't a famine in Ireland because not enough food was being produced. There was more than enough food. The problem was that most of that food belonged to wealthy British landowners who exported it all as cash crops. Most Irish people at the time were subsistence farming peasants who worked the fields of said landowners in return for a tiny strip of land to live on and grow their own food. The only crop that could sustain a family from such limited space was the potatoe, when it failed, the exports of everything else continued and everybody starved.

 

[Xoatl]

This would be good.


&

I'll refer you back to OP's point

There wasn't a famine in Ireland because not enough food was being produced. There was more than enough food. The problem was that most of that food belonged to wealthy British landowners who exported it all as cash crops. Most Irish people at the time were subsistence farming peasants who worked the fields of said landowners in return for a tiny strip of land to live on and grow their own food. The only crop that could sustain a family from such limited space was the potatoe, when it failed, the exports of everything else continued and everybody starved.

Perhaps it could be based on government types and ethos. But the vast majority of the time people eat what they grow before trading off the rest. For simplicity's sake that should be the norm, or something similar, like what OP described.

 

[Brian Bóroimhe]

Perhaps it could be based on government types and ethos. But the vast majority of the time people eat what they grow before trading off the rest. For simplicity's sake that should be the norm, or something similar, like what OP described.

Yes, such policies that facilitate selective starvation should only be available to authoritarian/xenophobic regimes.

For example the bastion of democracy, the land of the free and the home of the brave would never have hunger issues that disproportionately affect some more than others.

http://www.worldhunger.org/hunger-in-america-2015-united-states-hunger-and-poverty-facts/
"For households with incomes near or below the Federal poverty line, households with children headed by single women or single men, women and men living alone, and Black- and Hispanic-headed households,the rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average"

It would be cool if in societies that implement caste systems only the slaves starved at first.

Hmmm, cool maybe isn't the right term for it...

 

[The Founder]

I think your are overthinking it:
1st, if you food storage is not maxed out you do not got growth (or at least no bonus from excess food to growth).
2nd, if you production does not matches the demand, the difference is taken out of the storage first.
Managing between Growth and Security is part of the Food Storage Policy. The higher you set it, the longer it takes from them to fill. And thus the slower you growth will be in that time.
3rd, only if you got a deficit AND your storage is empty, does a Starvation penalty apply.
4th, with the rework letting the penalty scale based on needed/missing food would be easy. If you only miss 1/100th of the needed food, the penalty will only be 1/100th of the full penalty.
5th, if you want to "starve" pops to death, there is the Deathcamp and Food processing Purge options.
6th no mater how you kill Pops, you will not get around the Purge penalty to Diplomacy and happiness. Especially considering that one pop is a least an order of magnitude bigger then the entire human casualties in WW2.

 

[tangled axile]

The problem with that would be: Guess where the food producing planets are located? Why, in Sectors of course! In fact you propably make a food sector, with an agrarian species.

That's not a problem. At all. That is literally what was happening in Ireland during its Great Famine (there's a reason I brought it up!) - the ruling elite was EXPORTING food produced in Ireland, while the commoners starved. A region being a breadbasket does not mean ITS population necessarily gets fed.

There already is a whole system of storage to prevent that. If you are one under produciton, you have 200 months (or over 16 YEARS) to fix it with the minimum storage amount shown in the lifestream!
And then you are still stuck in the "it will be a fixed penalty like -5% per missing food" mindset. One of the advantages of making this stuff Empirewide is that you can actually figure total percentages. If you need 100, but only produce 99 AND are out of Storage: I guess that is at tops a -1% penalty on every planet. Might even round down to -0%.

If you actually manage to run out of storage, you have to realise: You ****ed up big time.
The new Food System is like energy, you want to have overflowing. If you manage to screw that Food Maintenance up, you just ****ed up.

Of course this is basically a non-issue for people playing well.

I just think a modest adjustment to provide the possibility of regional famines would be worthwhile, and likely of interest to some 'evil empire' players. With some more coding, it'd also be another potential specific avenue for internal unrest, which is a major focus of Banks - clearly, empires that allow (or even intentionally cause) famine in outlying sectors / for minority species should have rebellious reactions.